Since springing onto the scene over a decade ago, LA experimental, electronic, jazz and hip hop genre-bender Flying Lotus has become one of the most interesting, celebrated, and unique contemporary performers around, with a visual flair and immersive live show just as conceptual and evolutionary as his music. Since 2017, however, that show become even more one-of-a-kind, with the implementation of LA based 3D Live’s mind-blowing real-time 3D technology, incorporating huge, holographic type augmented visuals that provide an audio-visual experience unlike anything you’ve ever seen. In support of new LP Flamagra, FlyLo will bring his 3D tour to Nashville for the first time tonight, Sept. 4 at Marathon Music Works, with support from some excellent and equally genre-bending artists from his Brainfeeder label, cosmic funk maestro Brandon Coleman Spacetalker, buzzy electronic up and comer Salami Rose Joe Louis, and producer, DJ and longtime cohort PBDY. If you’re looking for a fresh, unique, one of a kind, avant-garde, and immersive musical experience, you can’t do much better than this, and tickets are available while they last right here! Read on for more about the show.
FLYING LOTUS
While not quite the household name of some of his regular collaborators like Thom Yorke, Kendrick Lamar, Erykah Badu, or Odd Future, multi-faceted, genre-bending, Grammy nominated artist Flying Lotus has, over more than a decade of incredible releases, positioned himself as one of the most gifted, innovative, interesting, and beloved contemporary fixtures making music today. Born Steven Ellison and raised in Los Angeles, the grandson of songwriter Marilyn McLeod and the grand-nephew of the great Alice and John Coltrane (all of whom bear a strong influence on his musical foundation), Flying Lotus sprung onto the scene with his 2006 debut 1983 and early associations with alt comedy channel Adult Swim, initially heralded for his J Dilla-esque approach to off kilter hip hop. By 2008 followup Los Angeles, however, it was clear that FlyLo’s range, ambitions, and uninhibited artistic vision were much more broad and profound that his debut might’ve indicated, moving towards a more experimental, electronic, and dance-inspired sound that would continue forward throughout another decade of perpetually evolving and ever-surprising records, further embracing his jazz roots with 2010’s Cosmogramma. Teaming up with the aforementioned Yorke, Lamar, and Badu, as well as the likes of Thundercat, Laura Darlington, Snoop Dogg, Captain Murphy, Solange, Shabazz Palaces, Yoro y Moi, Denzel Curry, and even David Lynch, among many others (not to mention countless features on other artists’ tracks, remixes, and much more), FlyLo’s output has quickly become of the most interesting and transcendent bodies of work of most any artist in recent memory, a true artist’s artist, weaving between more direct hip hop prowess, experimental jazz, electronic infused dance music, and beyond. With roots in film that stretch back just as long as his musical career (he even runs an independent film division through his indie label, Brainfeeder), Ellison has always had a strong visual identity as well, and was already putting on an immersive, avant-garde, and artsy live show well before his 3D tech help bring it to an unrivaled new level. Out in support of his new sixth album Flamagra, even if you caught Flying Lotus’s epic 3D live show on its inaugural run, this is sure to a fresh and evolving experience, and one you seriously don’t want to miss.
BRANDON COLEMAN SPACETALKER
An accomplished, funky, spaced out, and avant garde keyboard player (and keytar aficionado), composer, producer, arranger, and singer, Brandon Coleman, whose latest musical output seems to bear the moniker Brandon Coleman Spacetalker, is perhaps most visibly known for backing artists like Donald Glover and Kamasi Washington. However, with his new LP, last year’s Resistance, out through Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder label, Coleman steps out front and center for a cosmic, vocoder-fueled funk odyssey that channels everyone from George Clinton to Herbie Hancock to Peter Frampton to west coast tones of alt hip hop and beyond. A perfect compliment to FlyLo and an artist that deserves your attention in his own right, you don’t want to sleep on Brandon Coleman Spacetalker.
SALAMI ROSE JOE LOUIS
A brand new signee of Brainfeeder, whose latest LP, Zdenka 2080, will freshly drop just days before the show, Bay Area artist Salami Rose Joe Louis channels a dreamy, electronic, hypnotic, soulful, and funk-informed sound that makes her feel right at home on the buzzy label’s roster. The composer, producer, and transcendent artist has been putting out excellent (and lengthy) records for a few years now, and has toured with acts like Toro y Moi, but if she hasn’t yet landed on your radar, this bill feels like a wonderfully well-curated introduction.
PBDY
Regular Flying Lotus cohort and longtime fixture of Brainfeeder fam (also, notably the founder of his own indie label, TAR), LA based DJ and producer PBDY regularly crafts mixtapes, remixes, teamups, and more with the experimental and genre-bending artists who circle the same orbit as the rest of the lineup. Also one half of moody, psych/rap project JP Moregun, along with Jeremiah Jae, PBDY made his solo debut last year on Brainfeeder’s Branfeeder X compilation, and a perfectly primed opener to get this show started right.
Flying Lotus, Brandon Coleman Spacetalker, Salami Rose Joe Louis, and PBDY will perform tonight, Sept. 4 at Marathon Music Works. The show is all ages, begins at 8 p.m. (doors at 6:30 p.m.), and tickets are available to purchase for $30.
